Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cherio Gardens

During September, the four of us to Cherio Gardens. Matt had to buy Azalea's for his mum.


The trip was so very therapeutic for all of us but especially for me!

Liz and Matt kindly took my electric wheelchair along so I was as free as a bird in such beautiful surroundings

3 very happy ladies surrounded with God's amazing splash of colours A rear picture of Lizzie as she was the one taking most of the photo's. She was also in her absolute element!I so enjoyed having the freedom of getting around independently without getting tired so quickly!


Liz and Matt are truly an awesome couple, not to mention extraordinary phsyio therapists!


At one point of the trip, I got a chance to slip away by myself and I found a wonderful "cave" of flowers. I reveresed my chair into the cave and had such an amazing time of prayer. I found such a great sense of God's peace with regards to what I was facing at the time at the school.


The sense that He was and is still in total control was very tangible. I wonder if this place is a small resemblance of what heaven will be like!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Two Very Precious People

Not too many people are aware of the fact that I have left Northern Academy.

I was planning to resign at the end of September in order to escape the chaos of October through to March as I felt that I could not longer cope. Sadly, things got pretty ugly and I ended up resigning at the end of October with 24 hours notice as well as four broken ribs cauesd by more falls due to the stress of that time.

However unpleasent things were, I knew that God is Sovereign and that He was and is still in control.



Francinah had great fun dressing up as a school girl for Casual Day.
Francinah and Rahab were/are two incredible angels. They stood by me through that terrible last month at the school. They packed my entire flat up for me. They worked extra hours in the shop for me, doing stocktaking to help build my case.



They cried when I left and visit me often.


May God richly bless these two amazing women of God!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Feisty Pheobie Shows who is Boss

Charlie, our dog which Liz rescued from the grounds of Mankweng hospital and Phoebie are the best of friends. Charlie is well aware that Phoebie has a sharp end
Phoebie loves being nibbled by Charlie and purrs like a steam engine!
Sometimes the nibbling gets a bit rough but Phoebie lets Charlie know in her own sharp way
Liz and Matt often bring their dogs over to play with Charlie but this pack of dogs do not faze Phoebie at all. In fact, she takes great delight in teasing Denise especially
She loves to stay within their sight but just out of their reach
Denise gets warned by his dad and Phoebie enjoys every minute of it.
Phoebie ready and waiting to take a swipe at Denise
She is such a little tease.
A kitten with a lion's heart!



Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Phoebie Cat

I went home for the first time in June since January! At home, I met and fell in love with the new addition to the family, "Tiddles"! Tiddles is my mum's little ginger kitten which she found stranded and brought home!
Prior to meeting Tiddles, I felt that I was not ready to have another cat after Tigger had died. But Tiddles brought me SO much joy and I realized that it would be good for me to get a pet again!

The hunt for a kitten began.
I prayed that the Lord will bless me with a cat who had a loving personality
.
We hunted the farm sheds which are normally overrun with kittens but we found none! Upon returning from Tzaneen, I called Polokwane SPCA feeling very sure that they would have a variety of kittens looking for a home. Much to my surprise, they had none!

Two weeks later I returned home for my uncle's funeral. Sitting outside that evening I got home, I laughed when my mum suggested looking in the paper for kittens advertised. Much to my surprise, there was one advert. Mum called the number and learnt that there were eight little ones looking for homes. He told us that there was one beautiful fluffy female. We asked him to keep her for us as we would only be back from Johannesburg a few days later.
Well the very kind man did keep her and when we went to fetch her, she was the only one left. He mentioned that everyone had wanted her and I was so thankful that he had kept his word and saved her for me.

I called her Phoebie and she has just brought Liz and I such joy from day one.

Meet my little Phoebie
Matthew, the owner of the house in which Liz and I stay, loving Phoebie
Matt's wife (also Liz) adores Phoebie!
Matt and Liz are both physiotherapists and have become very close friends with myself and Lizzie
Phoebie exercising her hunting skills!
Loving the scratch tower I got for her!
"Give me more of dat cat knip, hmmmm"
Queen of the castle

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

In Loving memory of Uncle Freddie

My uncle (my dad's younger brother) sadly passed away on the 28th of June at the age of 54. He had struggled with brain cancer along with many other complications for a number of months. During his illness, he was lovingly cared for by my Aunt and my cousins.

Charmaine, Uncle Freds daughter very courageously organized everything concerning Uncle's funeral
Though the occasion was very sad I got to meet Charmaine & Quintins little one, Evan


We spent two nights with auntie Caroline and Uncle Henry in freezing Belfast. The funeral was in Johannesburg so we traveled down in convey.

Was lovely seeing cousin Craig and Annelien...
as well as their two gorgeous little boys, Kyle and Keagen

Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Weekend with Astella, Anica & Baby Joshua

Marius and Astrella have now sadly immigrated to Australia but a few weekends before they left Astrella and the kids spent a weekend with me. We stayed at Liz's house who was sadly away for the weekend and missed out on all the fun!!!

We had more than enough space and really had a very special time together!
Little Anica had great fun helping us make a pizza. Ofcourse, she had to taste and see if some of the ingredients were suitable for the pizza!









Anica also really enjoyed sitting on the physio ball!









Later in the afternoon, Astrella and myself baked a cake and found a collection of some very exciting cake decorations which auntie Liz had in the pantry. So Anica had such fun decorating the pink cake with all sorts of shapes and colours. "It just so happened" that the next day, the 6th of June was her 2nd birthday!






I bought Ancia her first set of paints and printed a few colouring in pictures of her favourite "Barney" character. She really seemed to enjoy herself, although she was quite confused between the brush, water, paper and the paint. She found great fun in mixing the paint in the water and often forgetting to paint the picture:)





Our weekend ended with a wicked spoil of strawberries, whipped cream and special coffee while the two little ones had a Sunday afternoon sleep! Sadly, we did not get any photo's of little Joshua has he is just such a quiet, good little baby! All he does is eat, chat a little a go back to sleep.

Now the Vogels are busy settling down in Australia,am missing them already!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Finally Meeting Baby Joshua

What a joy it was for me when Marius and Astrella popped in a few weeks ago to introduce me to little Joshua!

What a strong little boy! Not at all like his petite little sister, already looks like he is built to play rugby, like his dad.

His Hand of Protection

Since the beginning of winter, this is what my desk has been looking like after most high school breaktimes!

The school has introduced blazers for the high school kids (we have 2000 kids in the high school)! The procedure is as follows: The child has to come and fit, once I have the size, the child pays, I issue an invoice with his name, student no. etc. then I have to enter the same info on a Excel spreadsheet for when I place the orders. So for each child, a double transaction is done, their break is only 20min and so I don't have time to pack away the money between transactions!


Thankfully the rush seems to have died down now and it is not so hectic!


I praise God for His continuous Protection over this office!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

An Amazing Holiday doing LOTS of Nothing

I was very privileged to be invited to spend Easter with Liz and her family up in Mborne, a beautiful place which her parents had bought in the 80's down in the Natal Midlands.

Liz's dad kindly called us the morning we were supposed to leave and informed us of the hectic Easter traffic through Johannesburg. The tollgate at Kranskop was backed up for 20km. He advised us to take another route, through the province of Mphumalang!

The route through Mphumalanga was very scenic
We had left that morning at 6 expecting the journey to take us only 9 hours! However, at 4pm we came across this unbelievably long traffic jam just before New Castle!
We sat in this jam for well over a hour! It turned out to be a stop/go backup as they were doing roadworks up ahead! This is when our journey took a turn... We kept getting stuck in stop/go's continuously and as darkness fell, we got lost over and over!

Eventually we stopped at an Engen Service Station were Liz put her head back and slept for a couple of hours and we were back on the road again, getting lost every now and then and patiently waiting at countless stop/go's!

Towards what we thought was the end of our journey at 2am the next morning, we found ourselves lost on a quiet, single lane road. Here, much to our horror, we hit a pothole and had a puncture. Poor Liz insisted that I remain in the car and try keep watch while she changed the tyre! Liz did a brilliant job of changing the tire though just as she was tightening the last screw, the car battery died as we had kept the car running for light!

I have to admit that as two ladies sitting, lost in the dark was quite an airy experience!

But God! We by God's grace had come to a holt at the top of a slope and we were able to free wheel down the hill and get the car started! MANY prayers of thanks went up to our precious heavenly Father!

We found our way back onto the highway. Liz took a detour and found the route that she was familiar with. We finally reached our destination at 5am. The 23 hour journey was truly an adventure but we really thank the Lord for His amazing protection!Psalm 19:1-6

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Needless to say that we slept the whole first day of our holiday and this was just the beginning of an incredibly restful week.

Liz little Noah and myself went for a 6km walk to the dam and back, with Noah's dad Mike kindly helping with the pushing of the wheelchair.
Once again, we enjoyed the most amazing scenery on our walk The mind boggles at God's amazing creation We made it to the dam and this is where Liz came for a swim early one morning. She said that she really enjoyed it though it was very cold.
Easter Sunday, though very significant for us Christians, was an exciting day for the children. Bridget, Noah's mum had brought a stencil of a bunnies paw, auntie Liz brought baby powder and covered the lawn with rabbit spore. The adults had great fun hiding dozens of Easter eggs all over the garden. The kids had great fun following the spore and finding eggs, not to mention the fun all the adults had going around with the kiddies! Even little Myla Moo 'found' herself an egg Mike had the brilliant idea of discreetly collecting the found eggs and re hiding them in the lounge. I think the adults had more fun watching the kids than what the kids had hunting for them. Auntie Liz was "the best" when she brought out these huge chocolate bunnies for them. Their parents were just a little concerned about the sugar overload but as you can see, Kenzie and Noah were more than happy to have their bunnies.
When we first arrive Myla had a runny nose. Ang, Myla's mum was sorry that she had left the children's nebulizer at home.

When Liz and I went into Pietermaritzburg to get a new tyre, I decided to buy a nebulizer with the intention of letting the children use it while we were on holiday. I often need to be nebulized during the winter due to my weak chest and it has always been a mission to get hold of one so I thought it was a good idea to finally get one.

Well, it was not even 2 days after that purchase when I became really ill with the flu and needed to use it myself, talk about God's Providence.

The good Dr Liz was very firm with me and had me stay in bed as soon as the flu started. As a result I only ended up needing to spend one day in bed.

A very valuable lesson FINALLY learnt: "get into bed as soon as a cold makes its nasty presence known".

The rest of our holiday was spent relaxing and spending time getting to know some awesome people! Auntie Debs had some special times with the little Myla Moo
Smiley Myley
Laughing with Myla Auntie Debs and Myla having great fun